Saltwater Flies And Bass

On today’s market there are a wide variety of baits that are available for bass fishing. These bass baits range from top water buzzers to deep sinking soft plastics in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes there are even jigs tipped with pork trailers. Even amidst all these choices I find that fishing for bass with a fly rod provides me with the most bang for my buck. To set the stage for a great fight I prefer to use light leaders coupled to four or five weight medium action fly rods. I feel this helps to even the odds a little bit with the fish.
Similar to the more standard methods of catching bass, fly-fishing has a diverse range of baits (in this case, flies) to lure in the big one. The flies come in almost all colors, shapes and sizes in order to imitate anything from crawfish and frogs to minnows. Some of my favorite flies for wrestling the big boys are the less conventional: salt water flies. You are probably wondering why someone would use a fly designed for salt water on a fresh water fish; well, there are two reasons that come to mind.

First off, all the materials used on today’s salt-water flies stand up better to the hard-nosed strikes of a hungry largemouth. Epoxy and silicones are just a few of these special materials used to form minnow bodies and heads in salt water flies. These two materials are able to create life-like imitations while adding an almost bulletproof framework to the flies. Some additional advantages of salt-water flies versus regular flies other than durability would be that of realism and “fish-ability”.

Salt-water flies use materials that add lots of flash and sparkle, but at the same time help to create a very impressive copy of baitfish. More over, since most of the salt-water patterns on the market simulate minnows, these patterns do not require much new knowledge from the fisherman’s standpoint to correctly work the flies.

We have all seen large numbers of minnows when we have been out fishing. Now, just think of how they were behaving in the water. When trying to imitate one of these minnows, I fish these flies with a simple strip retrieve. I like to cast to my target, and then let the fly sink for a few seconds, and finish by beginning to strip it back to the boat. When stripping in the fly, I try to vary the length and number of strips each time until I find what is enticing the fish.

Basically, I begin by stripping the fly twice, and then pause for a few seconds. I then proceed to strip it three times, pause and start over stripping it twice. Another good idea is to try changing up the speeds of the retrieve until you see what the fish are responding to best that day. Next time you are out on your favorite lake fishing for largemouth’s, try throwing one of those salt waters flies you have stashed away in your box. Who knows, you might just find the “big fish catcher” you have been looking all those years for.